Editorial: A call for moderation

New Year’s may be too late to make a resolution about drinking. Let’s have a holiday season of moderation and caution.

The Patriot Ledger

Melissa Leminen should be a 27-year-old attending nursing school.

Patrick Byrne, 57, should be enjoying his second year of retirement after 34 years analyzing contracts for the Department of Defense.

Instead, Leminen is dead and Byrne is in jail, awaiting sentencing after having been found guilty this week of vehicular homicide and manslaughter for killing Leminen in an accident that is memorable for the now well-known and outrageous details related to it.

Patrick had spent the day at a bachelor party that began with 28 men bringing a dozen 30-packs of beer aboard a bus headed for a Rhode Island golf course and the Foxwoods Casino. That’s nearly 13 beers per partygoer if they were apportioned equally. And presumably, alcohol was available at the casino and golf course.

No surprise that by the end of the day, partygoers described Byrne as drunk and obnoxious, and family members reportedly spent a good deal of time begging him not to drive. No surprise that he killed somebody
after refusing to listen.

During Byrne’s trial, some facts about Leminen’s state on that evening came to light. She was driving more than 80 mph at the time of the crash. And Leminen’s blood alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit.

Those facts do not make Melissa Leminen any less a victim. And while the jury acquitted Byrne of a second-degree murder charge, they do not lessen his responsibility for her death. We will never know if she could have avoided his oncoming car if she were sober.

The verdict in Byrne’s case should cause us all to pause and reflect on our own attitudes toward alcohol, especially at the start of the holiday season.

This time of year, opportunities for inebriation abound. We need to be honest with ourselves about how much we drink. We should acknowledge that it probably takes fewer drinks than we’d like to admit before we’re not fit to drive. And we can help family members and friends who have problems with alcohol by making sure celebrations don’t revolve around it, or providing rides or a place to sleep it off.

New Year’s may be too late to make a resolution about drinking. Let’s have a holiday season of moderation and caution.